


the fear of flying

by AvaRosier



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Modern Westeros, references to past domestic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 02:29:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10350399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaRosier/pseuds/AvaRosier
Summary: “There's the Swamplandia Park, where I used to work during summers when I was in high school. I was a mermaid.”“A mermaid? Do tell.” Jon's lips twitch upwards in the first almost-smile she's seen on his face since they met. By all rights, she ought to be scared of him: he sometimes stares off into the horizon with a wild look in his eyes, is a former Army captain who's seen action, and there is a tattoo peeking out from underneath the sleeve of his plain, black tee. Sansa is glad he doesn't smile; she's learned not to trust men that smile at her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm recycling old fics that never worked out in other fandoms. This one, I think I drew upon Karen Russell's 'Swamplandia' and some article/story in the Oxford American magazine for research purposes.

_In the middle of nowhere, in the godsforsaken Neck_

_One summer where the year didn't matter that much anyhow_

 

* * *

 

 

People still refer to her as a girl. But she's not that anymore, is she? Sansa is nineteen years old and there's no longer something growing inside her womb. She's been on her own for eight months now (or does it not count if she was with _him_?) and by now she knows how to stretch §10 into at least a day's worth of meals, also how many days it would take after sending the check in with the utility payment before she needed to actually have the money in the bank to cover it. Surely that's enough to make her a woman now.

 

But Sansa doesn't feel like a woman yet, not with the greening bruise on her upper arm and the suitcase in the back with all the belongings she's got left. It's frighteningly dangerous to hitchhike, she knows this. But when she got off the bus at the Twins, she'd had too little money to afford the rest of the journey. It was going to be hard enough to swallow her pride and face her family again.

“What's in Greywater Watch?” The man next to her asks, steering the wheel of the truck with the palm of one hand. Jon had found her sitting on one of the benches just inside Red-Mart, tears of frustration rolling down her cheeks.

“Not much," she hedges at first. The prospect of trying to walk with a suitcase that had a broken wheel, in the ninety-plus degrees of muggy summer was enough to defeat even the strongest soul. But the handsome man with dark hair and kind eyes had paused on his way out of the store to ask her if she was alright. Sansa thinks she just nodded, too wrapped up in the panic of trying to figure out what she was going to do to pay him much heed. Jon had noticed her suitcase then and introduced himself before offering her a ride. It's been two hours since they got on the road and he hasn't so much as leered at her or tried to touch her under the guise of stretching his arm out over the back of the seat.

“There's the Swamplandia Park, where I used to work during summers when I was in high school. I was a mermaid.”

“A mermaid? Do tell.” Jon's lips twitch upwards in the first almost-smile she's seen on his face since they met. By all rights, she ought to be scared of him: he sometimes stares off into the horizon with a wild look in his eyes, is a former Army captain who's seen action, and there is a tattoo peeking out from underneath the sleeve of his plain, black tee. Sansa is glad he doesn't smile; she's learned not to trust men that smile at her.

“Well, Swamplandia is based on these clear springs, so of course the town decided to use them to draw in the tourists. It's been around for five decades- I could tell you all the nitty gritty trivia I had to memorize when I worked there. The park's pretty run-down nowadays. Not much money coming in from the local government to help keep everything in shape. It's got the usual attractions: a Ferris wheel, games, bumper cars and lousy carnival food. The most popular attractions, though, are the trapeze stunts, a woman who dives off a board into a pit with alligators and swims through them to the other side, and-”

“And mermaids.”

“Yep.” The truck is old enough and the air conditioner doesn't seem capable of spitting out anything less than slightly cool air. Life's left a few miles on this Jon Snow, too, she thinks. “Mr. Reed wanted me to take his daughter's place diving into the alligator pit when she moved away for college.”

“So why didn't you? Fear of flying?” There's no hint of judgement in his eyes.

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“So you'll know people there? I don't just want to drop you off alone.”

Sansa sits silently for a minute, clasping her hands tightly in her lap while she watches corporate chain after corporate chain whiz past her window. “Yeah, I have a few friends there.” What she needs is a job, just for a little while so she can save up some money to make it the rest of the way home to Wintertown. That is, if she hasn't burnt all her bridges.

The faint strains of a familiar song begins to play over the radio and Sansa glances over at Jon with a hopeful smile. “Can you turn it up? I used to love this song so much.”

“Sure.”

“ _I wished on the stars to throw me a beam or two. I begged of stars and asked for a dream or two…_ ” she sings along with the radio, liking the easy look Jon shoots her before he turns his attention back to the road.

The parking lot is half full when they pull into it and the sign welcoming them to Swamplandia Park faded. Sansa hops down from the raised cab and Jon gets out so he can lift her suitcase out the back and hand it to her with the handles already out. It’s awkward, not knowing what to say to the man she’s only known for a few hours.

“Thanks for the ride, I guess. And I hope you have a good time with your friend in Fort Cailin.”

“I will. I hope things work out for you here. And ah, maybe I’ll stop by and watch one of those mermaid shows before I make my way back south.”

“Maybe I’ll be performing that day.”

“If luck’s on my side. Goodbye, Sansa.”

“Goodbye, Jon.”

He waves out the window at her as he pulls out of the parking lot and Sansa turns back to the entrance of the park. “Start as you mean to go on,” she mutters, squaring her shoulders before she starts dragging her suitcase towards the buildings off to the side where the business of running the park takes place.

 

* * *

 

 

She hadn't been entirely truthful with Jon. It wasn't a fear of heights, or even flying _per se_ , that made her turn down the diving act. All her life, it seemed, Sansa had been a control freak. Always needing to get straight A's, always worried about what the other kids at school thought about her. She'd had a plan for high school, for moving to King's Landing to go to college- a timeline for boyfriends, cohabitation, and then marriage.

Joffrey sent it all careening out of order.

She'd loved him, and she had thought he loved her. The more she tried to hold onto him, to keep them together, the more everything fell apart. There had been a lot of hurtful words hurled between her and her parents before she had stormed out of their home, the screen door banging behind her while she tossed her suitcases into the back of Joffrey's car.

He grew bored with her, and resentful, long before there was a pink plus sign on the white stick. Silly girl, she'd thought he wouldn't hit the mother of his child. As it was, he'd beaten it out of her.

So no, Sansa wasn't afraid of heights. And she wasn't afraid of losing control anymore. She'd already fallen so far the bottom was an old friend.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s easier for Sansa to dive at night, with the long-dead constellations gleaming above her and the hot beam of the follow light blinding her to the danger below. Four nights a week, Sansa ascends the ladder to the diving board in a teal one-piece bathing suit. She stands suspended over a three hundred thousand gallon pit filled with filtered water and a dozen alligators.

Meera had been one of the park’s most popular performers, a world-famous alligator wrestler. “ _They can bite down with enormous force, but they lack the jaw muscles to open their mouth if you even put a scrunchie over it,"_ she had explained to Sansa that one time they sat in the break room alone, munching on nearly-stale corndogs the park let them have as compensation.

The deep end of the Gator Pit where Sansa dives into is thirty feet; it tapers off to four foot shallows decorated by large rocks to make it seem more like a natural swamp. She can't make out the details of the faces in the audience, but she can feel his eyes on her. Jon had shown up that morning, a strange expression on his face as he watched her twist through the water with a green tail and a purple clamshell bra. She'd felt voluptuous in the water with him there, seducing him with her grace and mastery of this one element where he could only look, not touch.

Here, above the world, Sansa steps onto the rickety edge and her arms raise in the air like a bird paused in motion. Her skin prickles with the anticipation, her lower belly heavy with the sudden absolute certainty of what would happen after she makes it through to the other side. It's funny- Jon had assumed her reluctance stemmed from a fear of flying and not from the beasts awaiting her below. She sees the dark shapes of their bodies poking out through the surface of the water. No, _they_ don't scare her.

Her trick is to hit the water at such a clean angle there is practically no disturbance to the alligators and swim underneath them, close to the floor, before emerging in the shallows. Joffrey taught her a lot about making herself disappear so she wouldn't disturb a dangerous creature.

A leap, a bounce, another leap and then she's weightless in the air for a moment that stretches on and on. The fall is exhilarating; she's done this enough times that she can almost enjoy the scenery as it whizzes past. They applaud her wildly when she rises out of the water and she waves prettily and triumphantly. It's enough to make her feel alive again.

Jon finds her later and takes her out for ice cream. Her hair is still drying in the cool breeze as she licks patiently at a vanilla cone. Sansa doesn't miss the hungry way he watches the motion of her tongue as they converse intermittently between lapses of companionable silence. She'd known _this_ would happen, too. Everything feels so free and possible when she smiles at him.

She licks at his cock much in the same way she had the ice cream cone. He makes her squirm under his tongue before he fucks her. It's messy and sticky and so so good. But Sansa finds herself trying to hold something back. To stop the whimpers and broken noises from escaping her throat. Jon stares at her so intensely as if he's trying to find the combination that would crack her open. He finds it with the rotation of his hips and an insistent thumb over her clit that makes _Sansa_ begin to disappear into nothing more than the wanting.

Jon builds her up and up until she teeters on the precipice. He'll see every uncontrollable emotion that flits across her face. He'll see her revealed and laid bare. She yearns for it every bit as much as she fears it.

“Shh, sweet girl,” he murmurs against her cheekbone when her cries reach a desperate pitch. “Just let go, I'll catch you.” Sansa clings to him as her limbs begin to shake and the unbearable tension breaks; working her hips wildly to chase every ripple of pleasure as it courses through her. There is another kind of freedom here, weighed down by Jon's heavy body as he shudders from his own release.

Their bodies stick together, making separation a little painful. But as she curls into his side with one of his arms wrapped around her, Sansa feels less afraid about the future. She's not alone right now.

 


End file.
